


refractions (not love, nor blind)

by Morbane



Category: The Seer and the Sword - Victoria Hanley
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Constructive Criticism Welcome, F/M, Love Triangles, M/M, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:15:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: The crystal has shown you Landen at last.





	refractions (not love, nor blind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).

> Set between when Landen steals the box and Dahmis' agreement with Vesputo.
> 
> Not happy.

As you have so many times, you take your crystal out of its wrappings and cradle it in your hands. You gaze deep into it, letting your eyes skip over cloud-like patterns and glints of light.

"Show me Landen," you murmur. You have asked the crystal to show him to you a hundred times, and it never obliges. Still, you are patient, and you will never stop asking. On the far wall, behind the crystal, the pale grey-blue edge of one of your weavings tints the crystal's colour. Landen's eyes have a similar icy shade. You will the crystal to show you his eyes in truth.

Nothing. Then a vision blooms. Instead of Landen, you see High King Dahmis, a familiar face to you both from crystal visions and from his visits to your home. There's a light in his eyes, and a smile curves his mouth. He seems relaxed and joyful.

He is not alone. A man reaches out to the High King's face, to trace the shape of his smile.

You know that man. You were in Archeld the last time you walked and spoke together. More recently, you saw a sketch of his face under words proclaiming him to be a traitor and a murderer. Lies, distorting his character worse than the sketch distorted his face.

The crystal has shown you Landen at last.

It shows him to you healthy, bright-eyed and vital, but you cannot rejoice. A hundred hopes and fears clash together in your thoughts, and you feel almost detached from your body. Afraid to lose the vision, you embrace the feeling: you are nothing but a surface the crystal's light shines on, nothing but a secret window to the room that Dahmis and Landen now share.

And if you were truly standing where the vision places you, you doubt you would catch their eyes any more than you do now, so intent are they on each other.

As Landen reaches almost reverently to touch Dahmis' face, Dahmis holds his gaze, still smiling, and for his own part, unties Landen's shirt. It is clear from his practised gestures that he is welcome to do so, and has done so many times before. With a laugh, Landen lifts his arms and shrugs off the loosened garment, his movements quick and nimble.

"No new scars," the high king notes. "It pleases me that you acquire none in my service."

"I think I would mind it less," Landen quips back. His expression does not match his easy words. His eyes burn with fierce adoration. With devotion. You have never seen that look on Landen's face before. But you know Landen, and you know what you see. The High King has all of Landen's heart.

Distantly, you feel yourself bite your lip, and will yourself to be even more distant. As if in obedience, the room fills in around the pair, as if the unseen eye of the crystal pulls back a little from the view. You see that the High King is also only half-clothed.

If not for the considerations of the heart, there is much to appreciate in this scene. Landen has a wiry, deft strength, energy thrumming through his limbs; Dahmis' broad frame is also well-muscled, and shaded with fine hair on his chest and back that - to judge by how Landen strokes it - is softer even than that which falls in waves from his head.

They stand pressed together for long, long minutes, Dahmis' hands passing over Landen's body with a firm touch as if to make truly sure that all his flesh is accounted for. Landen's touch is lighter, with an occasional flick of nails, and here and there a sudden grip as though he cannot quite believe this is real, and fights the impulse to pinch Dahmis in proof of it.

They are speechless, but not silent. Landen gasps, and twists it into a laugh. Dahmis makes a soft, pleased sound, like a deep hum.

"You have ridden a long way to be here, Bellanes," Dahmis says at last, his voice a tone deeper than it was when you first heard him speak. "Perhaps I should ride you now."

Landen grins. "It's true I long for a king's soft mattress under my back. But I'll take your cock with even more pleasure than that."

"And who am I to deny you?"

"Generosity befits a king."

_Bellanes_. You begin to guess, now, how Landen and the High King have come to know each other. You have heard many tales of Bellanes' exploits.

Without haste, the two arrange themselves on a bed, which from its rich fabrics and sturdy frame appears to be Dahmis' own, in his seat in Glaven City. Landen takes a pot of ointment Dahmis gives to him, spreads the ointment on the fingers of his right hand, and reaches down between his raised, spread knees, spreading the ointment where you cannot see. His full, flushed cock jumps a little in response to his efforts. Dahmis watches as avidly as you.

Landen finishes with the ointment, and offers it back to Dahmis with his left hand. With his right, he smears the ointment lewdly across his cock and lower belly. Dahmis is anointing his cock.

"Prepare yourself for me," Dahmis says softly. It's not quite a command; but then, even when the high king does issue commands, he cloaks them in lightness. The force of them is not in the tone, but in how he knows he will be obeyed. Landen props himself up on his left arm and reaches below his own balls again, pressing in, moving his fingers back and forth. You feel a sympathetic ache at how he stretches himself. 

Landen pulls his hand away again, wiping it on a cloth that seems to have been laid out for the purpose. "I await your pleasure," he says. The deep intensity of his words strips away any flippancy he may have intended for them.

Dahmis kneels between Landen's legs, and leans forwards. He presses his jutting cock inexorably into Landen's body. You see Landen shudder as he feels the intrusion, and then with a white-knuckled grip on the bedclothes, he forces his body up to meet the thrust. His mouth and Dahmis' are both half-open, with combined, choked grunts as their bodies lock together.

"More," Landen says roughly.

Dahmis grins, one hand splayed across Landen's chest, and begins to move above him, first drawing back with a slow drag and then thrusting violently forward, then gradually smoothing out his rhythm. Landen hisses raptly, and then twists his slack mouth into a smile again.

Dahmis slows a little. "I think I would like to see you claim your satisfaction before mine, if you can manage it," he says softly.

"I'll try," Landen says. He puts his right hand on his own cock, caressing the head. It's not easy for him to reach along his long torso and manage his grip at the same time as the high king is fucking him, increasing his pace. Whatever this does to the angle of Dahmis' cock in his body is twisting his face with flashes of pain as well as pleasure; still, this only seems to stimulate him more. You watch with mesmerised attention as he handles himself, stroking up and down with a firm grip.

His breath stutters. "Let me see you," Dahmis says, voicing your very thought, and Landen's cock twitches violently, yielding a thick, creamy spill that smears across his chest. "Ahhhh..." Dahmis says, and thrusts faster. Landen's body under Dahmis is relaxed, almost jerked about by Dahmis' motions. Another minute goes by like that; Landen breathing softly, raggedly, looking up at Dahmis with his eyes half-closed; Dahmis hammering his body into Landen's, a look on his own face that you cannot quite decipher, and a half-smile. Then Dahmis makes a long, gutteral sound - echoed as if involuntarily by a quiet moan from Landen - and sags above him. He shrugs his shoulders out, and smiles down at Landen.

You have been trying not to think, as you watch them - but a thought strikes you now. The look in Dahmis' eyes is satisfaction, and joy, and fondness - but it is not equal to the fire in Landen's eyes. In one's face, there is worship, passion, delight; in the other, there is warmth, deep admiration, and desire, but not the whole of the heart.

The High King cares for Landen, but not as much as Landen cares for him.

Nor as much as you care for Landen.

You close your eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of it all, and when you open them again, the vision is lost. You try to summon it back, but you are not surprised when you fail.

Pain begins to set in. Landen is well - and lost to you. Perhaps that is why the crystal showed him to you. His love is no longer part of your future.

How can you blame him? He believes you dead. When you last spoke with him, you were thoughtless and selfish, belittling his exile. 

He has found purpose and joy in the service of the High King. Just as you did.

And your continued service to the High King will benefit him as well.

You understand this clearly, but even so, it is several days before you can bear to pick up the crystal again.

The next time you see Dahmis in the crystal, he is alone on horseback. He is riding at a steady but not a desperate pace, through trees of a kind you know well, and so you know to expect him when he arrives later the same afternoon.

You knew to expect him in any case. The vision with Landen was not the first time you had seen him with a casual lover, and no previous dalliances had diminished his attentions to you. Sometimes you have wondered if he knew you caught these glimpses, and would not be displeased that you saw him.

You have had enough time to think over what you will do with what you have seen. When Dahmis asks how you fare, you tell him that you are lonely.

And when he asks if the affections of a king could ease that loneliness, you tell him yes.

He is so slow with you, so gentle. Since Vesputo, you never sighed for anyone's touch, and had not wanted to. Sometimes scenes of passion in your crystal stirred desire in you, but every time, feelings of impatience, irritation, or sadness followed soon after. That was for others, not you.

Dahmis convinces you otherwise.

You are so enraptured with him that you grow impatient with his gentleness, and he has to beg you to draw out the hours with kisses and caresses. But, in concession, he darts his tongue between your legs and overwhelms you. And, when you recover, again.

There are tears in his eyes when he finally makes love to you with his prick as well as his finger and tongue, and for a third time, despite his skill, you feel impatience, mixed with guilt. He thinks the world of you; you bask in it. But you do not return it.

Landen, Dahmis, yourself: none of you has what you want, or not enough.

The crystal does not show you what you can see for yourself. You will not search its depths for your expected ruin.


End file.
